Financial Web site TheStreet.com Inc. axed its UK operation yesterday, shuttered a joint venture with The New York Times and fired more than 100 people. That includes 64 jobs in the U.K. and about 40 in the U.S., or 20 percent of the U.S. work force.

TheStreet’s reporters, who follow the minutiae of the markets and make minute-by-minute reports, were unaware of the cuts.

Staff arrived at work to be told CEO Thomas Clarke had arranged a meeting and conference call for noon, at which the announcement was made.

The move was designed to save the company some $18 million, and achieve a positive cash flow position by the second half of 2001.

TheStreet.com owns 63 percent of TheStreet.co.uk, which was due to run out of money by the end of 2000. This site was responsible for $9 million of the company’s consolidated losses for the nine months ended Sept. 30. Other investors include Chase Capital Partners, Barclays Private Equity, BTF Group, 3i and Intel.

Clarke said the decision to pull the plug was a joint one by the investors. He said TheStreet.com still has “around $90 million cash reserves, which is years’ worth of operating capital,” and that the company is still considering making acquisitions.

“That sounds like the kind of thing you say to keep your value up,” said a skeptical Robert Hertzberg of Jupiter Research. “They wouldn’t say, ‘Join us on our downward spiral!’ It’s a sound product, but it’s not so superior to other financial news services that it has built up a great brand equity.”

Hertzberg added that Jupiter Research had shown that seven in 10 ‘Net users had no intention of ever paying for content, and that “since the tech stock slump, sites like these have become something you’re afraid to look at, rather than something that tells you how much richer you are than you were 15 minutes ago.”

TheStreet.com will wind down its joint venture with The New York Times by the end of the month, which will save TheStreet.com some “$500,000 to $1 million,” according to Clarke.

The Times immediately announced it would beef up its sleepy business coverage.

A spokeswoman for New York Times Digital said, “We are pleased with the learning we attained as a result of our joint newsroom with TheStreet.com.”

Launched in 1997, TheStreet.com became well-known for the verbal hand-wringing and stream-of-consciousness sound bites written by co-founder, hedge fund manager James Cramer, that he often composed in the backs of cabs.

After going public, the stock peaked at $60 on its first day of trading, but closed yesterday at $2.97, down 53 cents, or 15.18 percent.

The British site reflected bad timing, launching this February – just before the dot-com slump. All told, it lost around $16 million.

A valedictory e-mail from the Brits to their readers said, “We like to think we showed how quality, entertaining financial journalism should be done on the Internet . . . . It’s another Internet collapse – but one with a difference. TheStreet.co.uk hit all its financial targets during its brief life, including cashflow.”